


Friendship is

by Sorenalice



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety, Dialogue Heavy, Elias mention, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series, You'll take chubby beef martin out of my cold dead hands, au where jon has friends, drug mention, just friends being pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 13:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21300461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorenalice/pseuds/Sorenalice
Summary: "I'm gonna get fired. I just know it. I'm terrible at my job, and Artifact Storage is what's going to take it away. Sasha, I'm fucked."Sasha only snorted into her coffee, "You're not going to get fired, Tim. It was a typo. Elias knows how hard you work. Anyways I can't be a shoulder for you to cry on, I've got an appointment with a records office about some blueprints. See you both later."And so Jon was alone with Tim, who needed comforting. Jon in theory knew how to comfort people. He'd googled it once when he went to the bathroom at Georgie's uncle's funeral."I don't think you're terrible at your job. You're very... thorough. And detailed."Inspired by Peonyprophet on tumblr: "The tone shift... Jon goes through from calling Martin a useless ass to saying Tim has done his best back to back is so fucking good and funny and I support y'all with the Jon was in love with Martin the entire time he just used to hate it, but listen.... I don't give a shit and I want to know about preseries tim and Jon. Seems like the good set up for an extrovert adopting an introvert as a friend."
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker
Comments: 15
Kudos: 194





	Friendship is

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So this is the first fic I've written in.....about 6 years? Magnus just does it to me folks! In that time I've graduated high school and college, and wouldn't you know it, still barely know what a noun is. Not to out myself but I am american and I don't know a lot about british word choices, and I don't care but I will try a little.  
An extrovert adopting an introvert is how I met one of my best friends in those 6 years since I last wrote anything, so I wanted to base this on my own friendship in which I said something nice to an extrovert once and now I can't stop, so these are all based heavily on conversations and moments from that. Believe it or not, I am asexual and took a job I'm unqualified for,so I relate to Jon more than is probably healthy so we're projecting tonight.

Jon sat with Sasha in the break room, his gently steaming leftover chicken still too hot to eat. He and Sasha made small talk, the kind even Jon, while not quite comfortable with, knew the script to. 

"Lots of rain lately." She said, sipping her coffee quickly between bites of a sandwich.

"Yes, the weather says it will lighten up by Thursday."

"Maybe we'll even get some sun." Jon nodded, taking a bite out of his chicken so avoid responding. Sasha tore through her sandwich quickly while a very handsome man flung open the door to the breakroom. 

"Sasha I have a 999 situation. I fucked up.”

“I know. I heard from Eric in Artifact Storage. Yikes.”

The handsome man sat across from Jon in the break room, dropping his bag with a sigh, "I'm gonna get fired. I just know it. I'm terrible at my job, and Artifact Storage is what's going to take it away. Sasha, I'm fucked."

Sasha only snorted into her coffee, "You're not going to get fired, Tim. It was a typo. Elias knows how hard you work. Anyways I can't be a shoulder for you to cry on, I've got an appointment with a records office about some blueprints. See you later."

And so Jon was alone with Tim, who needed comforting. Jon in theory knew how to comfort people. He'd googled it once when he went to the bathroom at Georgie's uncle's funeral.  
"I don't think you're terrible at your job. You're very... thorough. And detailed."

Tim’s eyes lit up, but he stayed slumped in his chair. “Really? You think so?”  
Jon nodded as he took another bite of chicken. Tim sat up straight and started pulling his lunch out of his bag.

“You don’t think I’m going to get fired do you?”

“I-I mean I don’t really know the situation, but I can see how much care you put into your work. You’re not terrible at your job, you just made a mistake. I’m sure Elias will understand.” 

Tim sighed, opening his lunch. “That’s good of you to say. I’ve been freaking out about it all morning, just waiting for Elias to call me into his office.” Tim paused “Who are you, by the way?”  
Jon almost bit his tongue swallowing his chicken. Jon had been working at the institute for about six months, and Tim much longer. They’d worked together on a project before. 

“erm-Jon. I’m Jon Sims?”

“Oh, yeah we worked on the Greenfield project together, right?”

“Yes.” Jon nodded, taking another bite of chicken, keen to get out of the break room before Tim tried to socially interact anymore. 

“So, if Elias does call me into his office, what do you think I should say, in case I need to defend myself?”

Jon stared at Tim, frowning before looking down at the table. “Um, I don’t really know what happened, but uh,” he paused, scrambling for something to say that wouldn’t offend Tim but still generalized enough that it could apply to almost any situation, “maybe that you regret whatever happened, and you will be more diligent or, um, careful in the future. You’ve learned to not make that mistake,or- something? Maybe remind him of the good work you do, how much detail and effort you put in, um- the tax evasion angle with the Greenfield case, that was really, uh, innovative. Remind him of that, maybe?”

Tim nodded sagely, staring intently at Jon. “What are you doing tonight?” What did he normally do? He couldn’t think. Had it been too long of a pause since Tim asked? If he lied would Tim believe him? Probably not, with a pause that long. 

“Nothing.” He blurted, his body deciding to tell the truth before his brain could figure out a good enough lie. Tim grinned widely. 

“There’s a cafe nearby that has live jazz on Tuesdays. They have good crepes. Want to come with me?”

Again, Jon’s mind went blank “Why?”.

Tim shrugged, “You seem cool, and I like when people give me compliments”

Jon struggled unpacking that whopper of a sentence. Jon seemed cool. Jon? Jon didn’t know if complimenting someone’s work really counted as a step toward friendship or not. What could he say that would get him out of this? He couldn’t say he was busy, that was burned, what could he say. That he hates jazz? Sorta true but Tim might just suggest somewhere else and make saying to to the second option impossible. Lactose intolerant? No, lactaids and dairy-free milks exist and how is that even an excuse, Jon? Jon panicked and again, his body made his choice for him “Okay.”

Tim smiled even brighter “Alright, want to head over after work?”

“S-sure. I’ll see you then.”  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bottle of grapefruit vodka was completely unopened. Sealed tight. And, better yet, completely free. Completely free because they’d found it in an alley walking back to Tim’s the tube. Even if it was drugged they’d be drinking it in Tim’s apartment, safe and locked away from any dangers, with an ambulance a phone call away. This choice was not one of Jon’s smarter ones, but who was he to turn down what must’ve been a very expensive and very large bottle of free alcohol? 

Tim carried the bottle in his grocery bag, along with the onions, fig spread, chicken breast, carrots, and balsamic vinegar they’d bought. Jon was planning on teaching Tim how to cook the one and only fancy meal he knew how to make, at Tim’s request. 

They’d arrived at Tim’s not long after deciding to take the freely gifted and not mysteriously stolen vodka for themselves. Tim poured them both mugs full of vodka, “ This is self respect.”

“Full mugs of 40% alcohol with no mixer?” Jon asked, laughing.

“Yes. You respect the self’s ability to either ignore everything about the smell and the taste and everything, or you respect its ability to say no. Either way, self respect.” Jon chuckled as he pulled the groceries out of the bags and set them on the counter. Tim took a sip of his mug and gagged, pulling a face and frowning deeply. 

“Christ, you know how grapefruit tastes?”

“Yes?”

“Picture that, but like, much more acidic and much angrier and full of hate.”

“You’re really selling me on drinking this.” Jon started washing the produce and preheating the oven. “Don’t you have any good alcohol here? You’re an adult with a job you don’t need to take alley vodka to drink.”

“I mean I definitely do, but it’s the mystery. Where did it come from? Is it going to kill me? 

Maybe! Who’s to say? You need to join me on this journey, Jon.”

“Fuck, fine.” Jon took a drink of vodka and felt his soul leave his body. Tim broke out in laughter at the look on Jon’s face that was no doubt, truly expressing his pain. 

“Don’t get too fucked up now, you’ve still got to teach me to make fancy chicken, Mr. Lightweight.”

“You’re more of a lightweight than I am, Timothy.”

“I know but one of us needs to cook.”

“No, I’m teaching you how to cook, not actually cooking by myself. Anyways I need you to chop that onion into little squares.”

They got to cooking and drinking alley vodka. By the time the chicken was done, both were comfortably buzzed. 

“Tim why don’t you have plates?”

“I have plates.”

“None that are clean. Tim when was the last time you did dishes?”

“I mean- a few days. That doesn’t matter can’t we just eat it out of the pan?”

“The very very hot one that we just cooked over an open fire?”

“Yeah. That one. Let’s just eat out of that. I have clean utensils.”

“The nice ones that you stole from the hmong place down the street?” Tim nodded and went to grab them from a drawer. Grabbing the now half-empty vodka and ushering Jon into the living room. 

They sat next to each other on Tim’s lumpy old couch, laps covered in oven mitts holding the pan, tearing at the chicken with some mostly decorative, heavily branded, stolen hmong  
silverware. 

“You see the head archivist’s new assistant yet?” Tim asked, “His name’s Mitch or something.”

“Martin. Martin Blackwood. He worked in artifact storage for a while.” One of Tim’s eyebrows shot up, Tim turned to look at Jon out of the corner of his eye.

“Martin Blackwood, huh? From artifact storage.” Tim smirked and looked away, picking off another bit of chicken. 

“What’s the look?” Jon leaned forward to look at Tim, “What is that?”

“I mean. Martin Blackwood from artifact storage. You know more about him than you do about most people.”

“I- that’s not true.”

“It took you two weeks of almost daily hanging out to confirm my last name, and as far as I know, you’ve never actually hung out with Martin Blackwood from artifact storage.”

Jon glared at Tim, struggling to come up with a response, mouth hanging open. “N-no. I know about him because Jenny from artifact storage was talking about him. He’s sort of awful at his  
job. Terrible at filing and just the worst at staying on task.”

“How did Jenny bring him up?”

“She-Martin brought me some notes, and Jenny asked me about him during our lunch break. She said it was about time he was transferred out of artifact storage. Why?”

“No reason. You just- you have this look on your face.”

“What look?”

“The look where you feel something but you hate it, and you hate having emotions even more so you’re going to ignore it until it goes away or becomes a problem.”

“I do not have a look like that. Why are you even asking about him? Why are we talking about this?” Jon took a deep swig of his vodka, shaking his head.

“You absolutely do have a look like that, Jonathan. But I was asking because I saw him today and he’s a little bit of a bear.”

Jon snorted, a hand flying up to his face to keep from spewing alley alcohol all over Tim’s living room. “No, listen. He’s tall. Beefy. He’s built like a bear. He seems really nice though, like a teddy bear.”

“A teddy bear? Tim, please drink more.” Tim threw his head back, finishing off the last of his second mug of vodka. Both of them were starting to feel a little more than buzzed, judging from the way Jon slurred some words and Tim swayed a little in his seat.

“I just mean he’s a little bit your type.”

“I don’t have a type? Tim, I’m asexual. You know this. Tim. Why are we talking about Martin Blackwood?”

“From artifact storage,” Tim added, snickering “You are asexual but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a type. I’ve seen how you look at tall people, Jon. You go a bit mooney. I’ve met Georgie. She’s fucking 6’3”. Your best relationship was with a beautiful giantess, Jon. I’m just- Martin Blackwood from Artifact Storage is tall.”

“Fuck off.”  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“You don’t know how to archive”

“I mean- I would figure it out, obviously. This is a huge pay raise, I get better health and dental too, plus a ton more vacation days-”

“That you’ll never ever use.” Tim interrupts, and cocking his head to look at Jon. “You’ve worked here for five years and have never taken a vacation.”

“Maybe I could start because I could afford plane tickets. Anyway, the thing is that I already did take the job.”

“What?!”

“I said yes. But-”

“You said yes. Oh my god, you said yes.” 

“Yes, I said yes. I’ll be the youngest head archivist in the history of the institute.”

“Oh my god, you said yes to a job you’re not qualified for to break a record and take imaginary vacations.” Tim held his hands up to his face, shaking his head

“Anyway- I need assistants. Elias said I can have my pick of people, provided they say yes. Sasha is coming with, and Martin-”

“-Blackwood, from artifact storage?” Tim asked through his fingers, all of a sudden much more excited about Jon’s promotion.

“.....yes. From artifact storage, he’s from the archives now, he’s worked there before. But that doesn’t matter, Tim I’m trying to get you to work in the archives with me.”

Tim removed his hands from his face, holding them out in front of him, looking at Jon, confused. 

“Is that a good idea- I mean. Working for your friends always complicates things.”

“I’m not asking because you’re my friend, I’m asking because you’re one of the best researchers this institution has, and the archives are a clusterfuck. I have 200 years of statements to go through and make accessible and digitize, and I want the best people to help me. You’re one of the best people.”

Tim stared at Jon, look of confusion gone, hands still held out in front of him like he was praying, and his mouth slightly parted. “You think I’m competent?” Jon smirks and narrows his eyes.

“I mean- I’ve seen how you live but I know you’re competent at work. Sort of gives me more hope, you know. I know what a dumpster fire you are when the day starts, but when it comes to work you’re professional and thorough. Reminds me of what I want to do to the archives.” Tim laughs, throwing his head back and dropping his hands.

“Fine. Alright. When do I start, Boss?”


End file.
